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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

NMR 15N Relaxation Experiments for the Investigation of Picosecond to Nanoseconds Structural Dynamics of Proteins
Published on: November 1, 2024
Energy landscape distortions and the mechanical unfolding of proteins
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. daniel.lacks@case.edu
Abstract:
Molecular simulations and an energy landscape analysis are used to examine the stretching of a model protein. A mapping of the energy landscape shows that stretching the protein causes energy minima and energy barriers to flatten out and disappear, and new energy minima to be created. The implications of these landscape distortions depend on the timescale regime under which the protein is stretched. When the timescale for thermally activated processes is longer than the timescale of stretching, the disappearances of energy barriers provide the mechanism for protein unfolding. When the timescale for thermally activated processes is shorter than the timescale of stretching, the landscape distortions influence the stretching process by changing the number and types of energy minima in which the system can exist.
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